Recent Books (Fiction)

Robert J. Sawyer: WWW: WakeThe opening volume of a three-decker novel. Separate stories are launched but haven't yet come together. Protagonists are a blind girl whose recovery of her sight triggers the emergence of an Internet-based sapience, an artistic chimpanzee and a dissident behind the Great Firewall of China. 2010 Hugo Award nominee (****)

Paolo Bacigalupi: The Windup GirlThe environmentalist worst-case scenario comes to life in this novel set in a dystopic Thailand. Seas are rising, cheap energy is gone, genetic modification is out of control, artificial human beings are enslaved. The setting isn't very coherent, and almost all of the characters are unlikable, but the story moves along powerfully. 2010 Hugo Award nominee (****)

Cherie Priest: BoneshakerZombies, balloonists, a lost boy, a desperate mother, a mad scientist and more in a toxic, steampunk version of Seattle. Suspension of disbelief is stretched very hard. 2010 Hugo Award nominee (****)

Dan Simmons: Drood: A NovelMysterious events in the life of Charles Dickens, as told by his friend and rival Wilkie Collins. The plot involves involves mesmerism, violent deaths, an ancient Egyptian cult, specters, brain-eating scarabs, a Wilkie doppelgänger, and a gigantic conflagration beneath the streets of London. Or does it? The opium-addled Collins is the exemplar of the doubtfully reliable narrator. (*****)

Richard Calder: BabylonA teenage girl in an alternative Victorian England, where the cult of Ishtar remains a living force, escapes her unhappy home for the fantastic world of "Babylon". She is to be trained as a sacred whore but is soon caught up in a secret war between the Illuminati, who dominate Earth, and their vicious enemies, the "Black Order". Her ultimate fate is bizarre indeed. (****)

Shauna Roberts: Like Mayflies in a StreamThe epic of Gilgamesh, retold with the mythical elements kept to a minimum and an emphasis on how unpleasant it can be to live in the vicinity of a legendary hero. The heroine is well done: a woman who shapes her own life without being an anachronistic proto-feminist. The author's attention to historical and archaeological data is commendable. (****)

Jack McDevitt: Time Travelers Never DieA pleasant, though insubstantial, addition to an overcrowded subgenre. After inheriting a time machine, an aimless young man and his friend play temporal tourists. Not a whole lot ensues, and there are some silly mistakes (such as Greeks wearing togas). Still, it goes down smoothly, and the inevitable paradoxes are handled quite well. (****)

Theodore Odrach: Wave of TerrorBased on the author's experiences when the Soviet Union occupied his homeland after the Stalin-Hitler Pact, this book melds Chekov and Solzhenitsyn. By stages, the isolated folk of the Pripyet Marshes learn that there are worse masters than their former Polish overlords. (*****)

Simon Montefiore: Sashenka: A NovelBoth grim and funny, this historical novel peers into the inner world of an upper class Russian girl turned loyal Bolshevik, highlighting her youthful fling at revolution-making in Petrograd, her fall from grace under Stalin, and an historian's effort, after the end of communism, to ascertain her fate. (*****)

Harry Turtledove: After the DownfallMagically plucked from Berlin in 1945, a Nazi soldier finds himself in a parallel world that challenges his cultural assumptions. A well delineated picture of conflict between widely disparate civilizations, with a reminder that backwardness is not the same as stupidity. (****)

Harry Turtledove: The Man with the Iron HeartCan the U.S. maintain its resolve against a defeated enemy's terrorist campaign? Imagining a post-World War II Nazi insurgency, Harry Turtledove puts this question into a new context. As Reinhard von Heydrich's "werewolves" devastate Germany, war-weary Americans call for withdrawal, regardless of the consequences. (*****)

Terry Pratchett: NationThe first non-Discworld Pratchett in decades has the familiar mix of serious plotting and underlying farce, as an iconoclastic Polynesian lad and a properly raised Victorian lass carry on through tsunami, plague, shipwreck, pigs, pantaloon birds, gods, grandparents and cannibals. A tribute to courage in the face of physical and metaphysical ordeals - and funny, too! (*****)

Joe Haldeman: MarsboundMartian colonies are an old subject for SF, and this novel is in some ways an old-fashioned treatment, with the traditional elements of young settler, contact with Martians, and an alien menace. The plot and characters are so well done, however, that the story is fresh. The flavor is Heinleinesque, but the heroine is no Podkayne of Mars. (*****)

Neal Stephenson: AnathemIf you have not a smidgen of interest in how Platonic philosophy relates to the "many worlds" version of quantum mechanics, you still may like this novel, though you'll probably wish that the characters talked less. Persevere. After a slow start, the story grows compelling, and the intellectual dialogues turn out not to be digressions. (*****)

Charles Stross: Halting StateA bank robbery inside an on-line RPG leads throws a misfit programmer and an introverted forensic accountant into a real life game, international intrigue and each other's arms. May be the first readable novel ever written in the second person singular. 2008 Hugo Award nominee. (****)

John Scalzi: The Last ColonySpace opera in a universe much like a computer game setting. The super-soldiers of Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades, now retired, find themselves at the focus of a galactic war. Helped by luck, enemy idiocy and aliens ex machina, mankind survives. 2008 Hugo Award nominee. (****)

Joe Haldeman: The Accidental Time MachineMaybe all the variations on time travel are played out, but Joe Haldeman makes the old tropes enjoyable in this story of a down-on-his-luck grad student who invents a time machine without really trying. The resolution of the ensuing paradoxes comes very near to being credible. (****)

Ian McDonald: BrasylThree Brazils - past, present and future - twined together by a multiverse-wide conflict. The heroes are mostly antiheroic, and the milieu is more frenetic than credible, but it's no surprise that this novel is a 2008 Hugo Award nominee. I much preferred River of Gods and the author's other future-India tales. (***)

Connie Willis: All Seated on the GroundConnie Willis's annual Christmas story; a comedy about alien visitors who act much like annoyed maiden aunts. Making contact is a twin triumph of civility and true love. The story is also a good test of your knowledge of Christmas carols. 2008 Best Novella Hugo Award nominee. (*****)

Robert Ferrigno: Sins of the AssassinThe middle volume of a trilogy about a near-future, Moslem-dominated U.S. Most of the action takes place in the independent "Bible Belt", where resistance to Islamic domination is sometimes heroic and sometimes pathological. More of a pure thriller than its predecessor but good on its own terms (****)

Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's UnionI either mildly like or sharply detest this blend of hard-boiled detective story and alternate history; I'm not sure which. The setting is as grotesque as Gormenghast, the prose is as overwrought as Clark Ashton Smith's, and the hero cop makes Philip Marlowe look like a gentleman. The book oozes atmosphere, but maybe it's a little toxic. 2008 Hugo Award nominee. (***)

Mike Resnick: A Club in Montmartre: An Encounter with Henri de Toulouse-LautrecSomething different from this SF great's facile pen: An historical novel about Toulouse-Lautrec and the creation of his famous Moulin Rouge poster, seen from the point of view of a waif sheltered by the troubled artist. One in a series called Art Encounters, aimed at YA's but instructive and entertaining for anyone. (*****)

Connie Willis: D.A.Connie Willis sends up overfamiliar "space academy" stories with this one about the only girl on Earth who has no desire to enroll. Then she is informed that her "application" has been accepted. Is it a weird mistake? A devious plot? Can she get out? Funny, though the moral is rather pat. (*****)

Kathleen Ann Goonan: In War TimesThe author builds this multiple universes story around her father's World War II diary, which is at least as interesting as the energetic, but not wholly coherent, main plot. The ending is a JFK assassination theory with a Ron Paulian(!) twist. Also included is more than I wanted to read about the WWII jazz scene. Overall, a book I would have liked to like better and that others may enjoy vastly. (****)

Marie Phillips: Gods Behaving Badly: A NovelPagan gods lingering, with diminishing powers, into the modern world isn't a new idea, but this tale is a pretty good use of it. The personalities of Artemis, Apollo, Aphrodite et al. are deftly fitted into present day London. The humans in the story, a couple of shy underachievers, are a bit drippy, and the resolution to the gods' difficulties is one that would be highly unpleasant for us mortals. (***)

Alfred Duggan: Lord Geoffrey's FancyPerhaps the finest book of one of England's finest historical novelists. The setting is 13th Century Greece, where Crusaders fought each other and the shattered Byzantine Empire. The history is accurate, the writing graceful and the characters not merely modern people in fancy dress. (*****)

Robert J. Sawyer: RollbackLife extension and first contact are the twin themes of Sawyer's latest novel. Intermixed is a good deal of thoughtful, though elementary, philosophical pondering. "Rollback" is a hugely expensive procedure for restoring youth. A benefactor offers it to the world's foremost SETI researcher after an alien culture replies to a message she sent 37 years ago. She will accept the gift only if her husband gets the treatment, too. Then things go wrong. High quality work by a first rate, if slightly didactic, writer. 2008 Hugo Award nominee. (****)

Michael Flynn: EifelheimA double narrative: the appearance of shipwrecked aliens in a 14th Century German village and the 21st Century discovery of the event. The interaction between a brilliant human theologian and rather ordinary denizens of an advanced civilization challenges chronologically based prejudices. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (*****)

Vernor Vinge: Rainbows End: A Novel With One Foot In The FutureIn a near future in which every crank can deploy WMD's that make contemporary Islamofascists look like schoolboys, a poet who has lost his talent and his spunky granddaughter find themselves up against a conspiracy to solve the world's problems by eliminating free will. The careful extrapolation is mixed with some silly ideas and burdened with a sentimental Alzheimer's recovery story. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (****)

Charles Stross: GlasshouseSet after the post-Singularity future of the author's other writings, this novel follows a hero who must lose his memory and change his sex to infiltrate a recreated 1950's world that may be central to a plot to set up a dictatorship based on computer viruses. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (*****)

Peter Watts: BlindsightThe exploration of a giant alien artifact twists that familiar subgenre with a plausible, though ultimately unconvincing, argument that human self-awareness is a deleterious evolutionary accident. Characters include a vampire, a linguist with multiple personalities, a couple of cyborgs and a narrator whose special skill is absence of empathy. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (****)

Naomi Novik: His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1)Horatio Hornblower in the skies. In a fantasy parallel world exactly like the Europe of the Napoleonic Wars except for the addition of giant dragons, stalwart Englishmen and their draconian companions thwart Bonaparte's foul designs. Fun but lighter than air. 2007 Hugo Award nominee (***)

Tim Powers: Three Days to Never: A NovelTime travel, ghosts, Albert Einstein's daughter, ancient conspiracies, a blind assassin, a Mossad agent who will die if he hears the telephone ring: With his customary bravura and skill, Tim Powers fashions a coherent and exciting story out of a strange assortment of materials. (*****)

Tobias S. Buckell: Crystal RainAn inventive tale of a human colony isolated from galactic civilization, split between warring cultures and caught up in a vast conflict between alien races. Characters include an amnesiac ex-hero who wants to spend a peaceful retirement with his family, a quasi-human killing machine, a spy desperate to betray his masters, and a harried female dictator. Deserving of Hugo consideration. (****)

James Patrick Kelly: BurnIn a galaxy-spanning future, the planet Walden is a self-proclaimed "paradise" founded on simplicity and rejection of high technology. It also faces the problems of terrorism and disillusion, recounted through the story of a firefighter with a soul-corroding secret. A well-wrought picture of a distinctly odd society, with a plot whose moral dilemmas evade pat answers. Nominated for the Best Novella Hugo Award for 2006. (*****)

Rodney Bolt: History Play : The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher MarloweA pseudo-history springing from the premise that Shakespeare's flashy predecessor survived the famous Deptford brawl and fled to the continent, where he secretly wrote almost all of the Bard's works. A clever, tongue-in-cheek reworking of literary history, with the bonus of vividly recreating the milieu shared by many real Elizabethan exiles. (****)

Terry Pratchett: Thud!After 30 books, one might fear that Discworld is in danger of fatigue. Au contraire, this witty, vigorous tale of the culmination of an ages-old conflict between dwarfs and trolls, with Sam Vimes and Ankh-Morpork in the middle, is one of the strongest volumes yet. (*****)

Neil Gaiman: Anansi BoysCalling this comic novel a "sequel" to American Gods conveys the wrong impression. Anansi Boys is smaller in scope, funnier and more humane, though it likewise tells a story of dwindling gods adrift in the contemporary world. Anti-hero "Spider" steals the show and begs to be played by Will Smith in the movie version. (*****)

Stephen L. Antczak: Daydreams Undertaken15 SF tales, mostly from "little" magazines, in which weird events affecting weird people are recounted as if they happened every day. This volume may be a high-priced cult item 20 years from now. (****)

Connie Willis: Inside JobThe editor of a paranormal-skeptic magazine and his beautiful assistant encounter a most unlikely ghost: ueber-skeptic H. L. Mencken. Connie Willis in her lightest, funniest vein. Nominated for the Best Novella Hugo Award for 2006. (*****)

Matthew Pearl: The Dante ClubLiterary mystery involving Boston's post-Civil War intellectual elite in a series of atrocious murders inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy. Weak as a whodunit, strong on atmosphere. (****)

Iain Pears: An Instance of the FingerpostMystery set in Restoration England. The murder of an Oxford don is recounted from four widely different viewpoints. Heavy on period detail. Metamorphoses into theological fantasy at the end, which may displease some readers. (****)

John Derbyshire: Fire from the SunThree-decker novel about the contrasting, intersecting lives of a Chinese boy and girl, born in the same mainland village and brought to America by force of circumstances. Romantic and compelling. (****)

Lois McMaster Bujold: Paladin of Souls2004 Hugo Award Best Novel. A middle-aged heroine and worked-out imaginary paganism set this book apart from run-of-the-sword medievalesque fantasy. Hinging the plot on the nuances of a made-up theology was less clever. Sequel to The Curse of Chalion, with different characters brought to the foreground. (****)

H. N. Turteltaub [Harry Turtledove]: Over the Wine-Dark SeaFirst in a series of O'Brian-like nautical adventures set in the tumultuous times following the death of Alexander the Great. The Aubrey and Maturin are merchant cousins, devil-may-care Menedemos and intellectual Sostratos, who roam the Mediterranean looking for profit and girls, while avoiding storms, pirates and jealous husbands. Meandering plot but great fun. (*****)

Dan Simmons: Ilium2004 Hugo Award nominee. The Trojan War, high-tech deities, robots from the outer reaches of the Solar System and an Eloi-like Earth combine in typically weird Simmons fashion. Alas, much waits to be explicated in the sequel. (****)

Harry Turtledove: Gunpowder EmpireDebut of a juvenile series set in parallel worlds. 22nd century teen siblings, trapped without adult aid in a besieged city, must cope with the bizarre (to them) customs and prejudices of a never-fallen Roman Empire. [Rating is for 11-17 year olds; adults may find the book too didactic and unsubtle for their tastes.] (*****)

Terry Pratchett: Going PostalA small-time con man must choose between death and the Ankh-Morpork post office - and takes the more dangerous option. Big business, fraud, low-tech hacking, young love and general hilarity. Pratchett's best novel since Pyramids. (*****)

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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Smart Diplomacy in Mexico

H. L. Mencken was highly amused when President Coolidge, during an official tour of San Antonio, inquired, “What was the Alamo built for?” I’m reminded of that long-ago gaffe by Secretary of State Clinton’s stop at the shrine of the Virgin of Guadeloupe during her visit to Mexico last week. She laid flowers at the foot of the famous image of Mary, then asked, “Who painted it?”

The whole reason for this image’s fame is that Roman Catholics believe it to be acheiropoieton [not painted by human hands]. The escorting clergyman laconically answered Mrs. Clinton’s question: “God.”

Now, no one expects a busy gringo politician to be familiar with the quaint folkways of our neighbor to the south. Had some panelist asked, during the interminable pseudo-debates of the Presidential campaign, “What is the Virgin of Guadeloupe known for?”, no one would have blamed any candidate for punting. (I hope that none would have replied, “For neglecting birth control”.) On the other hand, when the Secretary of State makes a point of honoring a site with a symbolic offering “on behalf of the American people”, would it be too much to expect her to know the most elementary facts about the place?

I’m not sure whether this incident illustrates State Department incompetence or Madame Secretary’s casual approach to her duties. Perhaps she neglected her briefing book. Perhaps it was assembled by somebody incapable of cribbing from tourist handouts. We’ll never know, just as we aren’t likely to learn who did the Secretary’s ad hoc translating during her trip to Russia. Let’s just remember that these are the guys who are going to solve the world’s problems through Smart Diplomacy.

Recent Books (Non-Fiction)

Laurent Murawiec: The Mind of JihadAn exploration of the ideological and sociological roots of the cult of death that has grown up within (but is not entirely of) Islam. One of the half dozen books that anyone who wishes to understand our enemies ought to read and ponder. (*****)

Jason L. Riley: Let Them In: The Case for Open BordersA Wall Street Journal editor argues that immigration is good for the U.S. economy and no threat to our culture or national security. Immigrants fill jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist, are less likely than natives to commit crimes, and can become part of the American mainstream, if we will let them. (*****)

Guy Sorman: Empire of Lies: The Truth About China in the Twenty-First CenturyThe author traveled through mainland China for a year, talking to religious and political dissenters and to the 80 percent of the population that has been left out of the "Chinese miracle". He paints a sobering, though anecdotal, picture of poverty, oppression, corruption and deceit, mostly ignored by a complaisant West. (****)

Andrew Rippin: Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and PracticesAn expert overview of the history, teachings and practice of Islam, with attention to the full spectrum of Moslem beliefs and only a minimum of academic jargon. Usefully dispels to myth that Islam emerged "in the full light of history" and has changed little since the 7th Century, though the author may be too optimistic about the prospects for moderates and modernizers. (*****)

Kristie Macrakis: Seduced by Secrets: Inside the Stasi's Spy-Tech WorldMuch fascinating data on the East German Stasi's spycraft, extracted from formerly secret archives, marred by a plodding, ill-organized presentation. The reader must double as an editor, and the details are sometimes pointless or dull. The portrayal of real Cold War espionage makes these faults bearable. (***)

David Bellavia: House to HouseAn infantryman's searing memoir of the battle for Fallujah in November 2004, a crucial, hard-fought victory over al-Qa'eda and its allies. Whatever history thinks about the war in Iraq, this book is a future classic of military literature. (*****)

Philip Sabin: Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient WorldA military historian tries to improve our picture of ancient battles by devising a wargame to reconstruct them. With the documentary sources mined to exhaustion, this approach is a new way to try to understand what really happened. Included are a move-by-move "replay" of Cannae and data for applying the model to 35 other battles. (*****)

Michael Schmidt: The First PoetsBiographies of the major poets of ancient Greece, some enveloped in legends (e. g., Orpheus and Homer), some well-rounded figures, many barely knowable outside their verse. While separating fact from fiction is not the author's first priority, he presents a good picture of how the Muses' servants worked and what they accomplished. (****)

Amity Shlaes: The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great DepressionA breezy, episodic picture of the New Deal, from its prehistory in progressive pipe dreaming through FDR's reelection in 1940. The author thinks that deflation, high taxes, erratic policy experimentation, class warfare and overregulation choked off recovery. That's probably right, but her approach is unanalytical and won't undermine the Left's satisfaction with eight years of stagnation. (****)

William Dalrymple: The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857A sympathetic, though not misty-eyed, history of the fall of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last emperor of India's Mughal dynasty. Ruling little more than the Red Fort in Delhi, Zafar wrote poetry in four languages, navigated court intrigues, tried to preserve what little authority he had from the East India Company, and was fatally caught up in the Great Mutiny. The author draws on neglected native records to paint a vivid picture of the Mutiny and its aftermath. (****)

Christopher Clark: Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947An account of both the historical kingdom of Brandenburg-Prussia and the idea of "Prussianism". A central theme is that both were more varied than the popular conception. The brief heyday of militarism, repression and junker ascendancy must be balanced against the Prussian Enlightenment, Pietism and a surprising role as a bulwark of democracy during the Weimar Republic. A touch of academic bafflegab is annoying but not fatal. (****)

Constantine Pleshakov: Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of WWII on the Eastern FrontPortrays Stalin's blindly optimistic planning for the war against Hitler and inept reaction to the unexpected German assault, using material gathered during the brief opening of the Soviet archives. The author concludes that the pre-war purges instilled such fear of the vozhd that no one dared oppose his irrational strategy. Ironically, the same fear saved the regime from overthrow, so that it survived at the cost of immense damage to the hapless population. (*****)

William E. Odom: The Collapse of the Soviet MilitaryHow a huge military establishment, prepped for offensive war in behalf of Marxism-Leninism, disintegrated in just a few years. The author attributes the collapse to perestroika, which, while incapable of truly reforming communism, undermined the military's ideology and the public's tolerance for the appalling conditions of service. The failure of the 1991 putsch, the last gasp effort to restore the old regime, was the outcome of this process of decay. (****)

Charles Allen: God's Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult And the Hidden Roots of Modern JihadIslamofascism didn't emerge from nowhere on 9/11. It continues a tradition of violent jihad against everyone, including mainstream Moslems, who refuses to bow to a pseudo-primitivist interpretation of Islam. This book traces, albeit with many digressions, the history of the Wahhabi and Salafist sects, with special emphasis on their impact in what is now Pakistan and on their spectacular growth in the 20th Century. They may be the future of Islam, in which case a long, bitter "clash of civilizations" is scarcely avoidable. (****)

Lynne Olson: Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save EnglandThe story told in this book - how those who warned against an evil, aggressive ideology were scorned as warmongers and alarmists - has obvious contemporary resonance. I recommend it for those who are depressed by the self-inflicted blindness of the MSM and much of the electorate. Viewed as an historical work, it is well-written, colorful but not very deep, often glossing over the principles at stake in favor of retailing gossip. (****)

Richard Ostling & Joan Ostling: Mormon America: The Power and the PromiseJust about everything that non-Mormons need to know about the largest religious movement home-grown in America. The authors, evangelical Protestants, are fair-minded, neither hiding LDS eccentricities nor demonizing them. While a couple of chapters are superficial laundry lists, the book as a whole offers a valuable historical and theological overview. (****)

Jeffrey Herf: The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the HolocaustThis detailed account of the Nazi regime's anti-Jewish propaganda argues that it reflected sincere paranoid beliefs rather than cynical manipulation of traditional bigotry. By failing to take seriously the repeated calls for Jewish "extermination", the outside world (and probably many Germans, though the author barely considers this possibility) missed blatant evidence of the Holocaust. The most chilling book of the year. (*****)

Wilfred Cantwell Smith: Islam in Modern HistoryThough first published 50 years ago, this examination of Islam's efforts to reject or adjust to modernity is more insightful than most recent commentary. It includes a superlative analysis of the fundamental ways in which traditional Islamic thought differs from both Judaeo-Christian and Enlightenment concepts and shows the full extent of the challenge that Moslem modernizers face. (*****)

Andrew Lintott: The Constitution of the Roman RepublicThis analysis of how the Roman Republic was governed avoids undue theorizing about abstract concepts like the nature of imperium and disputes the common notion that the popular elements of the Roman political system were a fraud. (****)

Mark Steyn: America Alone: The End of the World as We Know ItAs Europe's non-Moslem population plummets, and its cultural self-confidence plummets even faster, America faces a long-term challenge from medieval obscurantists who will soon carry atomic weapons. Mark Steyn makes a valiant attempt to warn about the future that is almost upon us. (*****)

Melanie Phillips: LondonistanIn the years before 9/11, London became a center of Isalmic fascism, thanks to British officialdom's confidence that Moslem beneficiaries of the welfare state would never turn on their benefactors, whatever they might do to foreigners. The London train bombings showed up the naivete of that attitude but didn't expunge it. Melanie Phillips shows how Britain, particularly the British Left, continues to appease, even collaborate with, the enemies of civilization. (*****)

Tom D. Dillehay: The Settlement of the Americas: A New PrehistoryA leading authority on South American archaeology reviews, in sometimes exhausting detail, what is known about the earliest human presence in the New World, focusing on the southern continent. Much remains obscure and perplexing. While the author argues for his own theories, he does not try to impose unwarranted certainties. (****)

Jim Geraghty: Voting to Kill: How 9/11 Launched the Era of Republican LeadershipThe author may have been an overconfident prophet, but his account of Democratic fecklessness on terrorism and national security is well worth reading. And he may turn out in the long run to be right about the electoral effects of one party's refusal to take the War on Terror seriously. It is unlikely that the Islamofascists will stop fighting. If only one party is interested in fighting back, either it will become dominant or our future will be much like the one foreseen by Robert Ferrigno. (****)

Peter Heather: The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the BarbariansA narrative of the last century of the Western Roman Empire from the "Late Antiquity" point of view, according to which accident played a larger role in the barbarian triumph than institutional failure or economic crisis. As an account of politics and warfare, the book is first rate, but neglect of culture and (especially) religion makes it one-sided. An editor was desperately needed to weed out slang, clichés and over-cute parallels to the 21st century. (****)

Jung Chang & Jon Halliday: Mao : The Unknown StoryA relentless exposé of one of history's great monsters, whose self-centered ambition destroyed tens of millions of people. China will never recover fully until it renounces Mao's tyrannical legacy, a project that, alas, is far from being completed. The book's only weaknesses are occasional naivete about geopolitics and a prose style that reads like a literal translation from Chinese. (*****)

Charles Spencer: Blenheim: Battle for EuropeAn energetic history of the campaign of 1704, which destroyed Louis XVI's prospects for dominating Europe. The viewpoint is strongly partisan (anti-French, pro-Marlborough), which leads to some simplification and distortion, but the book is excellent as an overview of an historical turning point. (****)

Arthur Cotterell: Chariot : The Astounding Rise and Fall of the World's First War MachineThe military use of the chariot is a topic badly in need of a definitive analysis. This book isn't it. The author's theory, that chariots were primarily platforms for archery, may be correct but is advanced without a solid foundation of evidence. The discussion is digressive and overly credulous of literary and semi-historical sources, while scanting archeology. On the positive side, the materials gathered here are full of intrinsic interest. (***)

Toby Wilkinson: Genesis of the Pharaohs"Gift of the Nile" may be a misnomer. A leading expert on Egyptian prehistory argues that the civilization of the Pharoahs originated on the savannahs (now deserts) to the east of the river. Well written and accessible, though oversimplified on occasion. (****)

N. A. M. Rodger: The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain 660-1649This account of 1,000 years of English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh naval history is full of surprises, showing how Anglo-Saxon seapower fell apart under the Normans and revived only sporadically until Henry VIII, Elizabeth and (surprisingly) Charles I laid the foundations for the Royal Navy. Sprightly writing, a plethora of facts and no fear of shattering myths. (*****)

Thomas V. Cohen: Love and Death in Renaissance ItalySix tales of love. adultery and murder, culled from 16th Century Roman court records, give unusual insights into the emotional life of the era. The author's arch diction and lit-crit pretentiousness are irritating but not fatal to the interest of his material. (****)

Walter E. Kaegi: Heraclius, Emperor of ByzantiumLife of the Emperor who saved Byzantium from the Persians but could not fend off the Moslem advance. Good on military affairs and government; weak on the important religious side of the story. (****)

Donald Keene: Emperor of JapanThe history of the Meiji Restoration from the viewpoint of its Emperor. Despite a wealth of detail, however, the mind of the central figure remains enigmatic. (****)

Jennifer Loach: Edward VI (Yale English Monarchs)Left incomplete at the author's death and finished by her students, this life of Henry VIII's son challenges his reputation for sickly piety and portrays a fairly typical, though bright, adolescent. (***)

Richard Osgood & Sarah Monks: Bronze Age WarfareSurvey of the fortification sites, weapons finds and other archeological evidence relating to warfare in Bronze Age Europe. Stronger on description than interpretation but excellent at what it does. (****)